Morning Surprise

We woke up to an icy morning today. Most schools in this and surrounding counties were closed, but some were on a two-hour delay. A plethora of government offices were also on a two-hour delay, but some offices gave their employees the option of working from home via the internet. Fortunately Richard’s employer fell into the last category.

Although the weather outside was treacherous and we were stuck inside, I made another delightful discovery about our apartment. As I listened to the scraping of ice from sidewalks and cars, I was also hearing spinning wheels on ice and an occasional falling icicle. Being a bit nosey, I had to open our window to watch what was going on outside. Until today, we have left the blinds in our bedroom closed. So, for the first time in two weeks I opened these window coverings and to my delight I saw that our third floor apartment bedroom looked out onto a beautiful, very large holly tree. Furthermore, the tree was teaming with robins and cedar waxwings. Of course that meant picture-taking! So I grabbed my camera and tripod, positioned myself in front of our bedroom window (after having opened the screen, storm window, and inside window) and began to shoot away. I thought I’d share some of the morning’s “shoot” with you. As you will see, Pele, my 17-year-old Norwegian forest cat, was also interested in the birds!

I don’t usually photograph birds, but these were literally sitting right outside my bedroom window. I could almost touch them, and there were so many of them. They were creating quite a bit of commotion and noise as they were flying into and out of the tree. Most shots were blurs because their movement was constant. But as you can see, I did get some shots. And Pele enjoyed watching, too. You told me once before that Jim photographed birds. I would love to see some of his shots.